


Hanachash

by ruric



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Community: slashthedrabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-14
Updated: 2005-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 20:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruric/pseuds/ruric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've met in a hundred rooms like this, safe and anonymous scattered across the city, always taking care never to use the same place twice</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hanachash

They've met in a hundred rooms like this, safe and anonymous scattered across the city, always taking care never to use the same place twice. Hotels where a few bills pressed into a sweaty palm the next morning guarantee the proprietors discretion. No difficult questions about the damage, broken furniture, bloodstains on the sheets or the identity of the occupants.

The flickering adverts outside, testifying to the power and glory of a materialistic culture where money can buy you anything and everything, emit a dull buzz. Gold light penetrates the grime on the window, sliding through the slats of the worn blind, playing over the skin of the sleeping man sprawled on the bed. 

The air reeks of them: booze, sex, sweat, blood and come. It fills his head, lodging behind his eyes, sliding over his tongue and down his throat, choking him, allowing for nothing else.

Soft sounds - the huff of indrawn breath hovering on the verge of a snore, the whisper of charcoal on paper – are no distraction as he sketches. Looking from the bed to the pad, shaping the curve of a shoulder, prominence of cheekbone, the ripple of muscle, the way the sheet falls just so over a hip, blending and shading, erasing and smudging, until his fingers are stained grey.

It takes hours but he wants it to be perfect, placing it where he knows it will be found before he closes the door quietly as he leaves.

Lindsey wakes, blinking blearily against the light, his hand sliding over the edge of the bed to close around the neck of the whiskey bottle. One long swallow, a morning after chaser to burn the fur from his mouth and curl liquid heat into his belly, then he blinks again and looks around.

The room is empty, his clothes folded neatly over a chair as always, which is _never_ how he leaves them. 

There’s something on the table but he makes himself wait, cleaning up, taking a shower, washing away the smell of sex, the scent and taste of _him_ , the feel of hands, lips and teeth on his body. 

He dresses quickly, clothes hiding the marks, puncture wounds in the hollow of his collarbone, on his inner thigh, the perfect circular bite over his heart. Makes himself wait as he checks the room, nothing left for anyone to be able to trace them, only the incantation to repeat to remove the protective charm when he leaves.

Walking to the table and looking down, his breath catches in his throat at the exquisiteness and eroticism of the drawing. Unmistakably him, asleep, but Angel has taken one liberty. Rising from his shoulders, curled under him and half draped over him, a pair of huge black wings.

There's a black scrawl across the bottom corner of the drawing: Hanachash ~ " _Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n_ " Goodbye.

Lindsey smiles, recognizing the quote and the challenge, and slides the picture into his briefcase as he leaves.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "wings" prompt on the J community [](slashthedrabble.livejournal.com>slashthedrabble</a></myroot>)
> 
> The quote is from _Paradise Lost, Book 1_ , 263 and hanachash, depending on your sources, can be interpreted as either the serpent or the shining one.


End file.
